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Grand Master · 11-04-2007, 10:04 PM

The sliding doors in the upper bulkhead cabinets of my '63 Trade Wind stick badly.
How do you remove the sliding doors to clean, or repair the plastice track?
I, also would like to change the doors from white melamine, to wood finish. Any experience out there?
Mike Brumback

Mel · 11-05-2007, 09:45 AM

Hi Mike, can you post some pics of what you're looking at? That might get the ideas rollin' in.

AIR-Quarius · 11-05-2007, 10:46 AM

our previous owner said (about the sliding partitions) that some vasiline applied lightly with a q-tip in the groove will keep them sliding...wait til some threads of cloth get stuck in the ends...talk about detailing!

Grand Master · 01-06-2010, 07:38 PM

Well it has been two years and I still haven't figured out how to remove the sliding doors from the upper cabinets in a 1963 Airstream. The tracks are plastic and the doors stick due to the slight buckling of the tracks.

I would like to remove the doors which appear to be made of hardboard with a melamine face. I would then trim the bottom or top edge of the door about 1/8" to allow them to slide without sticking.

Surely someone is smarter than me and figured this out.

Mike

ROBERTSUNRUS · 01-06-2010, 07:46 PM

Hi, you have a lot of patience; I would have used a stick of dynamite and a match long before two years went by.

This is a question for Andy/Inland RV.

flyfshr · 01-06-2010, 07:47 PM

Well, I can't help you with the track as mine is aluminum but I did have the sliding doors made by the same laminate company that did my countertops. I've had to take them out and sand them on the back where they go into the tracks to allow them a little more play. Need to do it again.

Good luck.

Brad
FF

63air · 01-06-2010, 08:26 PM

One of the first things I did on my '63 was to fix the sliding doors. What I did was to slide one door to the side and then remove the track on that side (I broke it on purpose to get it out). Then you can slide the door back and remove it. Do the same thing with the other side of the door. You can get new track in wood ,plastic , or metal from various woodworking suppy companies. I believe the plastic track I used came from Rockler. I reused the hardboard doors but you could use plywood or plastic, it just has to fit and slide in the track. The big trick with a sliding doors is make it smaller than the opening between the bottom of the two tracks so that you lift it into the upper track then drop it backdown to install or remove it. To make them slide easily use drawer lube (available from woodwork supply companies). I did have to shim the track and trim my doors. The track can be installed with double stick tape or small countersunk screws.

Grand Master · 01-06-2010, 08:52 PM

63Air,

Thanks for the reply. I have looked at tracks at Rockler but haven't figured out how to attach them to the Airstream locker cabinets. The original slides have a lip that fits over the front edge of the cabinet door opening.

I would appreciate hearing how youmade these work in your cabinets.

Thanks....

InsideOut · 01-06-2010, 09:22 PM

They sound like sliders similar to our '56 Safari. We were able to lift a door up then angle it out of the bottom track - then it just slips out of the top track. The top track is deeper than the bottom so there is some "play" to lift it up. I'm not sure what your track is like (plastic?) but ours is metal - very similar to this. Unfortunately, the early plastics of the 60's we not as stable as those today and they tend to become brittle or sticky. You may want to consider replacing yours with aluminum. We were able to order M+D products through our local Home Depot - but Outwater Plastics has a really good selection of miscellaneous track & extrusions as well and you can order direct. You may be able to find something that will work...

Good luck!

Shari

goransons · 01-06-2010, 09:27 PM

I've been pondering this exact issue on tracks, since the plastic ones on our 63 were damaged. The best option I have come up with is getting some of the edge trim from outwater plastics to cover the 1/4 plywood edge, then going to rockler.com and they sell two different types of that track, in plastic and aluminum that you can replace the plastic track with. You might be able to get the doors as close to center of the cabinet (away from verticle frame parts) and using a couple shims and a stick of wood carefully expand the cabinet ever so slightly to pop the panels out then either build new slightly smaller, or trim/sand the old ones to more easily install/remove in the future.

63air · 01-07-2010, 11:05 AM

Can you post some pictures of your cabinets so we can see what you have , yours might be a little different from mine but it doesn't sound like too big of a problem.

Grand Master · 01-07-2010, 07:43 PM

Here are 3 pictures of my upper cabinets with sliding doors. The 3rd picture is taken from inside the roof locker. Any specific sugestions to replace the plastic tracks that have warped with age would be appreciated. The current tracks were made with a lip to cover the edge of the cabinet panel. I cannot find any current sliding tracks made like this.
How would you attach the plastic or metal tracks available from sources like Rockler?

63air · 01-08-2010, 09:00 PM

I used a high quality double stick tape (3M product) to mount the Rockler track and it has worked very well. I think you could use a variety of things such as dabs of silicone, construction adhesive,3M trim adhesive, or contact cement -any product that is compatible with the track. I did not worry about the track overlapping the front because the track sticks up and blends well the cabinet. I left the little moulding pieces on the sides so everything looks factory . Somewhere on the forum there are picture of my refinished cabinets if you can find them, not sure where they are at.